Critic’s Pick
An epic fable.
‘Megalopolis’
Adam Driver stars as Cesar, a genius architect with lofty plans to rebuild a futuristic city in Francis Ford Coppola’s latest.
From our review:
What matters is the movie, a brash, often beautiful, sometimes clotted, nakedly personal testament. It’s a little nuts, but our movies could use more craziness, more passion, feeling and nerve. They could use a lot more of the love that Coppola has for cinema, which he continues to pry from the industry’s death grip by insisting that film is art.
In theaters. Read the full review.
One wiiild and crazy night.
‘Saturday Night’
Directed by Jason Reitman, this comedy-drama reimagines the 90 minutes leading up to the premiere of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 11, 1975.
From our review:
“Saturday Night” is a movie made by fans, but because Reitman assumes that his viewers are fans, too, and because he’s racing against the clock, he gestures at instead of digging into the show, its humor and history. He nods at the generational shifts in comedy and TV, and tweaks the censors. Yet there’s not enough about how the show’s comedy works, and why one sketch kills and another dies. And there’s no sense of how it works as television.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
Alexa, climb a tree.
‘The Wild Robot’
After washing up on an island, a robot named Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) develops a parental bond with an orphaned gosling (voiced by Kit Connor) in this tender animated drama.
From our review:
Written and directed by Chris Sanders (“How to Train Your Dragon”) and adapted from Peter Brown’s novel, the movie is a dazzling triumph of animation in which you feel the filmmakers’ attention on every frame. In a revivifying turn away from the gag-a-minute, computer-generated extravaganzas clogging up the animated zoological canon, this is a work that cares most about two things: big feelings and great beauty.
In theaters. Read the full review.
The devil you know (all too well).
‘Apartment 7A’
This prequel directed by Natalie Erika James tells the story of what happens in the apartment building from “Rosemary’s Baby” before Rosemary moves in: A young dancer, Terry (Julia Garner) encounters the usual wicked suspects.
From our review:
It’s passably spooky, sure. But all interesting prequels have something in common: They shed new light on their predecessors that expands, illuminates or complicates them in some way. “Apartment 7A” feels like a predictable retread.
Watch on Paramount+. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
Waking up is hard to do.
‘Sleep’
The newlyweds Hyun-su (Lee Sun-kyun) and Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi) contend with disturbances in their pleasant household when Hyun-su begins acting strangely in his sleep in this horror-thriller directed by Jason Yu.
From our review:
Yu’s direction is confident, and he manages to convey how a little apartment can transform from domestic comfort by day to claustrophobic agony by night. His restraint throughout keeps us guessing. We really don’t know what’s plaguing Hyun-su. Is it nerves, or a neurological disorder, or some dark and shadowy force?
In theaters. Read the full review.
The real mystery: how to get through this slog?
‘Killer Heat’
Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Nick Bali, a detective investigating a mysterious murder on the scenic island of Crete.
From our review:
Directed by Philippe Lacôte, [“Killer Heat”] has the starter elements that might equate to a romp of a detective movie: a hard-drinking private investigator character running from his past, a screenplay based on a short story by the celebrated crime novelist Jo Nesbo. But this film has none of the charm, tension or cinematic energy to elevate those ingredients into a greater sum.
Watch on Amazon Prime Video. Read the full review.
A picture-perfect performance.
‘Lee’
This biopic directed by Ellen Kuras follows the life and work of Lee Miller (played by Kate Winslet), a journalist and photographer who documented World War II for British Vogue.
From our review:
The movie begins with a framing device: Miller being interviewed by a journalist in her farmhouse in 1977, which allows her to tell her story. The director Ellen Kuras uses Miller’s actual photos and recreates a number of her more piercing images throughout the film — as a tribute, but also as a call to head to the archive. “Lee” feeds the desire to seek out more of her images. Winslet’s performance demands that we consider the force behind the camera.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Strength on and off the court.
‘Rez Ball’
A Native American high school basketball team led by the star player Jimmy (Kauchani Bratt) gears up for the state championship in this sports drama directed by Sydney Freeland.
From our review:
The movie tends to race through actual game play — though the actors at least can handle the ball — and so the film’s strength lies more in the players’ easy rapport and the New Mexico location shooting. … It’s less a slam-dunk nail-biter than a matter of can-do self-determination, or as Jimmy’s friends say: stoodis (“let’s do this”).
Watch on Netflix. Read the full review.
Quantum confusion.
‘The Universal Theory’
As a young physicist, Johannes (Jan Bülow), works on his thesis about quantum mechanics in the Swiss Alps, he encounters deepening mysteries in the mountains in this twisty noir directed by Timm Kröger.
From our review:
It’s more than enough to make our hero go mad, though the film fails to present this unraveling with enough psychological grit and narrative momentum to make its more unusual surprises feel impactful. Though visually handsome, the film leaves the audience with the sense that, like a grad student, it is still working out its big ideas.
In theaters. Read the full review.
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